Topeka KS Fun Facts
Topeka is the capital city of the U.S. state of Kansas and the seat of Shawnee County.[2]
The name Topeka is a Kansa-Osage sentence that means “place where we dug potatoes”,[12] or “a good place to dig potatoes”.[13]As a placename, Topeka was first recorded in 1826 as the Kansa name for what is now called the Kansas River. Topeka’s founders chose the name in 1855 because it “was novel, of Indian origin and euphonious of sound.”[14][15] The mixed-blood Kansa Native American, Joseph James, called Jojim, is credited with suggesting the name of Topeka.[16] The city, laid out in 1854, was one of the Free-State towns founded by Eastern antislavery men immediately after the passage of the Kansas–Nebraska Bill. In 1857, Topeka was chartered as a city.